This Week in Weird, Nov. 20

Friday

Live grenades in home, a stolen go-cart, a lost teddy bear and more in this week’s edition.

Lawyer finds live grenades in home of woman who died in September

QUINCY, Mass. - At first, lawyer John A. Walsh didn’t realize that what he was holding was a live grenade.

He’d just found it in a kitchen cabinet in the home of a client who died more than two months ago. He put it back where he found it Saturday and went home.

"It looked like the grenades you see in the movies,'' he said. "I picked it up and gently put it down.''

After doing some research on the Internet, Walsh suspected the device, which looked like a small pineapple, was real. He was right.

On Tuesday, the Boston Police Department bomb squad removed the World World II-era grenade and three smaller phosphorous grenades that a cleanup crew had found in a cardboard container in a detached garage at the home.

Esther Butler, who was in her 80s, lived in the house with her husband, John, until his death in 2003. John Butler was a retired State Police detective lieutenant and a Navy veteran who saw combat in the Solomon Islands during World War II.

Walsh contacted Quincy police at about 10:30 a.m. Tuesday. The Boston bomb squad was then called. The devices were taken to Moon Island near Squantum and detonated. No one was injured.

Ohio man arrested after driving stolen go-kart

CANTON, Ohio – Canton police on Monday arrested a man driving a go-kart that was stolen earlier in the day, according to jail records.

Craig E. Johnson, 18, of Canton, was arrested at 9 p.m. Monday at his home on a receiving stolen property charge.

Jail records said he was driving a stolen vehicle that had been taken earlier during a break-in, but the jail records did not say where the break-in occurred.

Johnson was released on his own recognizance early Tuesday pending a hearing in Canton Municipal Court.

The charge against Johnson is a fourth-degree felony, which carries a maximum sentence upon conviction of 18 months in prison and a $5,000 fine.

Human foot found in creek

SPRINGWATER, N.Y. - A state Department of Environmental Conservation team working with an excavator to restore an eroding bank of Springwater Creek in the Village of Springwater made a shocking find Tuesday, discovering what is believed to be a human foot.

The remains were discovered inside a sneaker in the creek. State police and the Livingston County Sheriff’s Office responded to the scene shortly before 11:30 a.m. to conduct an investigation.

“We have a pretty good idea who it belongs to," Investigator John McNelis said.

Troopers said they believe the foot belongs to Gerald Meek, a Springwater resident reported missing in August 2006. In January 2007, a portion of Meek’s skeletal remains were recovered in an area not far from where the foot was found Tuesday.

“The cause of his death was not determined, but there was no indications of foul play,” said McNelis. “I’m pretty confident the foot belongs to him. We have to perform (deoxyribonucleic acid) testing before we know for sure, but his original remains were located farther north.”

Troopers said substantial flooding in the area within the last year could have displaced the foot from the rest of the remains.

A beary happy ending: Rescue rangers save lost teddy

LAKE OF THE OZARKS, Mo. - Thanks to a Lake of the Ozarks State Park ranger, a 5-year-old Columbia girl was reunited with a very special bear after accidentally leaving it behind Halloween weekend.

Jessica Martin and her family were on their way to Grandma’s house, a 450-mile trip to Oklahoma, when they decided to make a pit stop at Pa He Tsi public beach in Osage Beach.

In a letter written to the Lake Sun newspaper by Jessie’s father, Bob, he described his daughter’s relationship with the stuffed bear affectionately.

“Just about all children have special toys. The ones that give them comfort during stressful times and make them happy. To her, this was Beary.”

The family packed back in their van after 20 minutes and made their way onward, he said, but just outside of Springfield - an hour and a half later - he said his daughter asked a question that “sent a chill through us all.”

“Mom? Where is Beary?”

To their dismay, Beary was nowhere in sight, and after much thought, Jessie remembered putting him on a park bench at Pa He Tsi “to look at the boats while she played,” he said.

It was too late in their trip to turn around to rescue the bear.

“As you can imagine, she didn’t take it well and her heartbreaking pleas made this old, gruff, surly dad want to cry. Questions I couldn’t answer like ‘Who will take care of him,’ ‘Where will he live now,’ ‘What if they throw him away,” he said. “She was genuinely devastated and took full responsibility for the loss, which I admired in one so small.”

Martin said, although skeptical of the outcome, he got in touch with the park’s offices to see if anyone could search for Beary.

One of the women they spoke to explained that the park was very short-staffed, but took down their number in case someone could go out.

As luck would have it, someone was available. That person was Ranger Dave Stark.

“After the call came in, I went over (to Pa He Tsi) and went to looking,” Stark said, adding that he was tipped off by a fellow park-goer to the bear’s whereabouts.

“I’m a father and a grandpa; I know how important a bear can be, especially to a little girl,” he said of what the family would describe as his heroic efforts. “Maybe our most important job is taking care of the people. I’d like to think that any other ranger here would have done the same.”

After Stark saved Beary from an uncertain fate, he said he called the family to inform them of the recovery.

“Ranger Stark informed me that Beary would be part of the bear relocation program and would be boxed up and shipped back to us. He should be there when we got back from our trip,” he said.